Crypto’s biggest gains in 2025 weren’t on price charts but in policy, institutions, and infrastructure, as regulatory reversals, Wall Street access, and onchain growth quietly reset the industry’s long-term trajectory, Pantera Capital argues.

Crypto markets are entering a more regulated phase as governments expand coordinated data-sharing rules, signaling broader tax oversight while pushing digital assets closer to mainstream financial systems across multiple jurisdictions.

A major shake-up at the SEC is reshaping expectations for crypto oversight, with a departing commissioner known for strict views giving way to leadership seen as more open to digital asset innovation.

During the first week of December, we posed a question to several leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, asking them to forecast bitcoin’s price by year’s end. With the calendar now flipped to the second day of 2026, we revisited a select group of AI models with a similar prompt—this time requesting their projections for bitcoin’s closing price on Jan. 31, 2026.

Bitcoin strutted into 2026 like it owned the cryptosphere, posting a price of $89,431, a 24-hour range between $87,742 and $89,778, and a market cap nearing $1.78 trillion. Yet, beneath the surface of this glittering price tag lies a market simmering with conflicting signals. Momentum whispers strength, while volume—and a few lagging indicators—are raising skeptical eyebrows.

The Ministry of Defense Export Center of Iran, referred to as Mindex, is now accepting payments in cryptocurrency for advanced weaponry equipment, such as drones and ballistic missiles. This would be the first time that a country publicly accepts crypto for this kind of equipment.

Crypto ETFs closed the final trading day of 2025 with continued pressure on bitcoin and ether products, while XRP and solana quietly extended their late-year momentum.

Digital assets are poised to mature into core financial infrastructure in 2026 as regulation, institutional capital, and real-world use converge, accelerating adoption beyond speculation and reshaping global markets, according to insights from Binance’s APAC leadership.

Galaxy’s 2026 outlook frames bitcoin’s evolution beyond price cycles, arguing the asset is increasingly tracking gold’s adoption curve as institutional access expands and long-term monetary hedge demand strengthens toward a $250,000 trajectory.

Binance is forecasting a powerful expansion of digital assets in 2026, pointing to easing policy, clearer regulation, and accelerating on-chain adoption as forces reshaping global finance beyond a traditional crypto bull market.

Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer by market capitalization, expanded its bitcoin holdings in the fourth quarter of 2025 with the acquisition of 8,888.8888888 BTC. As the calendar turns to 2026, the firm’s wallet ranks as the fifth-largest address holding bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s long-observed four-year market cycle is facing renewed skepticism after the asset closed 2025 lower than it opened, a first for a post-halving year.

Hyperliquid didn’t rely on hype cycles or marketing blitzes to break into the spotlight—it engineered its way into relevance, forcing the crypto industry to reassess how far onchain trading infrastructure had come.

Congressman Warren Davidson reflected on the origin of bitcoin and its true purpose. As part of his New Year’s message, Davidson remarked that bitcoin’s promise was not to be “an illiquid inflating asset” but a “permission-less, peer-to-peer payment system,” as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto.

Strategy Inc.’s massive bitcoin exposure keeps it central to institutional crypto debates, blending extreme leverage, deep liquidity and index inclusion while facing volatility, dilution pressure and looming index-rule risks that could reshape how investors access bitcoin through equities.